Creating a website for your company is the first step in becoming successful. One website, then a social media presence, then a physical store, and then worldwide success – a simple pipeline, right? Not quite.
After all, many business websites run into some big issues when they’re first starting out. And if you have little to no coding skills, or you’re not even sure how a website gets launched in the first place, you’re more likely to run into the same issues than anyone else.
But don’t worry. Millions of small business owners can be safe and successful online, even without any knowledge of the way websites are built or maintained. You just have to be aware of the risks – here are the main ones you need to know about.
A Bad Homepage Layout
If your visitors can find their way around your homepage, they’re not going to use your website to the fullest. It doesn’t matter how good your content is at the moment; if the layout and navigation aren’t linear either way, no one is going to stick around to read it!
So think about this above all else. Does your website make sense to the untrained eye? If you were about to click through to your website to try and find a relevant product, would it be easy to get to the page you’re looking for? Seeing as you might be biased, you’ll also want to ask friends and family to experiment with the format – what do they say about it?
The Site is Slow to Load
A slow loading website is a huge inconvenience. Not just for you, but for your clients as well. And if you want them to enjoy your service, this is a bad first impression to make. Because a slow loading website suggests a few things.
First, it means you’re not ready for the traffic you’re getting. Second, it means you’ve got a bad website load – you might have a few too many images slowing things down, and that can harm your content rating. And finally, if you don’t do anything about the latency, it suggests you don’t really care about visitor experience either. That’s definitely not a point you want to make, especially accidentally!
Not Creating a Backup
If you don’t have a backup of your website ready to go right now, you’re really missing a trick. What if something happens to your website and you lose access to it? What if a certain page formats in the wrong way and you lose your copy? What if there’s a malicious attack and half of your content goes missing? Anything could happen!
Plus, if you’re currently working in a website builder with a combined host, you’re going to want to migrate one day. Say you want to try HubSpot migration; you’re going to need a backup to help this occur without any loss to your site. And if you don’t want to be impacted by SEO transition, this is the number one way to keep your ranking.
A Bad Mobile Integration
Most of your website visitors are going to come from mobile. That means your website needs to look good when being viewed from a phone screen. And if that’s something you’ve never thought about before, get on it now!
You can easily test the mobile platform using Google itself, so it won’t be hard to double check how you’re performing right now. If things look bad? It’s time to tweak your code, or go into your website builder and navigate to the mobile view section.
Poor Search Engine Rankings
Your hard work at building your website doesn’t stop with the website itself. Now you’ve got to focus on how the search engines are ranking it. To do this, you’re going to need an SEO strategy, and an audit of your current SEO practices.
You need to know how well you’re performing within your niche, and then have a plan about how to take your presence even further. This means targeting relevant keywords, making sure you create content regularly, and you’re always thinking about ways to bring the good word back to you. This means getting a few of your clients to weigh in!
If you want to build a website for your business, keep these issues in mind. Your homepage needs to load fast, visitors need to make their way through the page without trouble, and you need to keep a backup in case something goes really wrong!
